As the president of Bennett College, Dr. Julianne Malveaux has seen these situations play themselves out way too often. While in Chicago for the annual Rainbow/PUSH Conference, the good doctor offered some words of encouragement for young women on how to avoid potentially deadly situations and become mentally and emotionally independent. –gavin philip godfrey
In light of the Rihanna and Chris Brown fiasco, what do you tell young black women about how to avoid violent relationships?
So many young women seem very anxious to have relationships. It’s the nature of human beings to want to be in relationship in concert with others and have people who care about you. So many young women seem so focused on that — they forget who they are.
There seemed to be some tension in this relationship [Chris Brown and Rihanna], yet her agents and others continued to push to her to be seen with this young man in public, to be photographed with him in public, even as there was some tension going on. Don’t ever let someone put you in a situation that you’re not comfortable with and be OK with walking away from a relationship. I tell students all of the time, women are cake and men are icing — you can have cake without icing, but you cannot have icing without cake, so therefore, understand that you are enough.
Going along with that, what is your advice to black women who often find themselves relying on men for their financial security?
Part of education is financial literacy. We’re hoping that women will be able to — upon graduation — support themselves. The issue is not to become dependent on a man for support. Of course, people make compromises throughout life, but you need to know about money, about ebbs and flows of money, about partnership. If you do marry, it’s important to talk about how you merge your money. We do a financial literacy week every semester where we bring in financial experts and give students the opportunity to do everything from pull their credit scores on.
We want to make sure that young women understand that it’s not about the ‘bling.’ Lauryn Hill said, ‘It’s not what you cop, it’s what you keep.’
